Ever found yourself staring at a wall at 3 a.m., wondering if your dog dreams in color or why we all just collectively decided that "money" has value? It’s a strange headspace. Most people try to shake it off. They think they’re being unproductive. But honestly, leaning into those weird things to think about is basically a workout for your brain’s lateral thinking circuits.
It's not just "shower thoughts" nonsense. Scientists call this "divergent thinking." It’s the ability to find multiple solutions to a single problem by exploring non-linear paths. When you wonder if an orange was named after the color or the color was named after the fruit (spoiler: it was the fruit), you’re actually engaging in linguistics and history without even trying.
The world is objectively bizarre. We are biological machines riding a pressurized rock through a vacuum. If you aren't occasionally overwhelmed by the sheer absurdity of existence, you might not be paying enough attention.
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The Existential Glitch in Your Daily Routine
Think about your tongue. Right now, it’s just sitting in your mouth. You can’t find a comfortable place for it, can you? Now that I’ve mentioned it, you’re manually controlling your breathing too. Sorry about that. This is what happens when the "autopilot" of the human brain gets interrupted by a conscious thought.
Our brains are designed to filter out the mundane to save energy. If we processed every single sensation—the feel of our socks, the hum of the fridge, the fact that we can always see our nose but our brain just deletes it—we’d go insane. But when you bypass those filters, you enter a realm of weird things to think about that can actually shift your perspective on reality.
Consider the "Ship of Theseus." It’s a classic thought experiment that keeps philosophers up at night. If you replace every single wooden plank on a ship over time, is it still the same ship? Now, apply that to yourself. Your cells are constantly dying and being replaced. Every seven to ten years, you are, molecularly speaking, a completely different person. Yet, you feel like the same "you." Where does the identity actually live? It’s not in the atoms.
Time Is Way Weirder Than You Realize
We treat time like a river, flowing one way. But physics—specifically Einstein’s theory of general relativity—suggests time is more like a giant block of ice. Everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen exists simultaneously in a four-dimensional "block universe."
It sounds like sci-fi, but it’s the prevailing view in modern physics.
This means that right now, "past" you is still being born and "future" you is already dead. You’re just a three-dimensional slice moving through that block. If that isn't one of the most unsettling weird things to think about, I don't know what is. It changes how you view regret. If the past still exists "somewhere" in the spacetime fabric, it isn't truly gone; it’s just at a different set of coordinates.
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Then there’s the "Great Filter" theory regarding aliens. We haven't heard from anyone else in the universe. Why? Either we are the first to make it this far, or every civilization hits a wall and goes extinct before they can reach the stars. If the filter is ahead of us, we’re probably doomed. If it’s behind us—like the transition from single-celled organisms to complex life—we might be the luckiest things in the cosmos.
Space is mostly empty, and so are you
You feel solid. This screen feels solid. But atoms are 99.9999999% empty space. If you removed all the "empty" space from the atoms that make up every human being on Earth, the entire human race would fit inside the volume of an apple.
We are essentially ghosts made of electrical charges held together by nuclear forces. When you "touch" a table, you aren't actually touching it. The electrons in your hand are repelling the electrons in the table. You’re just feeling a microscopic cushion of electromagnetic force. You have never actually touched anything in your entire life.
Why We Love Modern Folklore and Simulation Theory
People like Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford, have popularized the idea that we might be living in a computer simulation. It’s a modern version of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Think about the trajectory of video games. In forty years, we went from Pong to near-photorealistic VR. If a civilization survives long enough to create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality, they’ll probably run thousands of them. Statistically, what are the odds we’re in the "base" reality versus one of the thousands of sims?
It’s a fun rabbit hole, but it also has a practical side. It makes you look for "glitches." Have you ever had a "Mandela Effect" moment? That’s when a large group of people remembers something differently than how it actually happened. People swear the Berenstain Bears were spelled "Berenstein." They remember Sinbad starring in a genie movie called Shazaam (he didn’t).
While it’s likely just a quirk of how human memory reconstructs data—we don't record memories like a video, we rebuild them every time we recall them—it adds to the pile of weird things to think about when you’re bored.
The terrifying reality of the "Ego Death"
Ever heard of the "split-brain" experiments? In the mid-20th century, doctors treated severe epilepsy by cutting the corpus callosum—the bridge between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
The results were haunting.
Researchers found that the two halves of the brain could act independently. One side could see an image and the other wouldn't know it. Sometimes, the "silent" right hemisphere would disagree with the left. One patient's left hand would try to close a book that the right hand was interested in reading. It raises a chilling question: are there two "yous" inside your head, but only one of them has the ability to speak? Are you just the spokesperson for a committee of biological processes that you don't actually control?
Social Constructs Are Just Imaginative Spells
Language is probably the weirdest thing humans ever did. We make specific vibrating noises with our throats to teleport ideas into someone else's brain.
- "Apple."
- Now you're thinking of a red fruit.
- I just hacked your mind with a sound.
Everything from the concept of a "border" to the existence of a "corporation" is a collective hallucination. A corporation isn't a physical thing; you can't point to it. If you fire all the employees and burn down the building, the corporation still exists on a piece of paper in a government filing cabinet. We live in a world governed by imaginary entities that we’ve all agreed to treat as real.
If everyone woke up tomorrow and forgot that the US Dollar had value, it would just be green paper. The only thing keeping the global economy from collapsing is our shared belief in the "story" of money. This isn't a conspiracy; it's just how human society functions. We use stories to cooperate at scale.
Actionable Steps for Deep Thinking
Thinking about this stuff shouldn't just make you feel small or anxious. It should make you feel curious. If you want to use these weird things to think about to actually improve your brain power, try these steps:
1. Practice the "Five Whys"
Pick a mundane object, like a pencil. Ask why it exists. Then ask why the answer to that exists. Do this five times. By the fifth "why," you’ll usually hit a deep question about economics, physics, or human nature.
2. Explore the "Overview Effect"
This is a documented shift in awareness reported by astronauts when they see Earth from space. They realize how thin the atmosphere is and how borders are invisible. You can simulate this by looking at the "Pale Blue Dot" photo taken by Voyager 1 and reading Carl Sagan’s thoughts on it. It’s an instant cure for sweating the small stuff at work.
3. Lean into the "Uncanny Valley"
Observe things that are almost human but not quite—like AI-generated faces or advanced robotics. Ask yourself exactly what "spark" is missing. Defining the "soul" or "consciousness" by looking at what lacks it is a great way to understand your own humanity.
4. Question Your Senses
Remind yourself that you don't see the world as it is; you see a version of it that was evolutionarily advantageous for your ancestors. We can't see infrared. We can't hear high-pitched whistles. We are blind to 99% of the electromagnetic spectrum. What else are we missing?
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Instead of scrolling through a feed of rage-bait news, spend ten minutes tonight thinking about how your brain is a three-pound blob of fat that uses the same amount of electricity as a dim lightbulb to create your entire universe. It’s a much better way to fall asleep.
The goal isn't to find "the" answer. The value is in the questioning. When you realize how much of our reality is built on fragile assumptions and strange biological quirks, the "problems" of your daily life start to look a lot more manageable. You aren't just a person with a to-do list; you are a conscious witness to a bizarre, beautiful, and utterly confusing reality. Embrace the weirdness.